Dolphin Address 02
January 12th 2007
Spring in Ireland is supposed to begin on ST. Bridgetsday, the first of February. My Irish spring was almost as early as the notice stamped on a letter posted to me on the 2nd of January: ‘Post early for Christmas’.
This I thought too funny to miss, but the first title that came to my mind for this second report from the funny farm was: ‘Spring Cleaning’. Not only for its cleansing properties, but also for sheer wonder and amazement about the Human Condition in general and mine in particular. It is not true that the family of Man can be split up in two tribes: those who are able to monitor themselves and those who absolutely can’t. Though sometimes it very much may look like that.
When I compare how, only two weeks ago, I looked at other people and how I see them now I almost fall off my chair from astonishment. Then and there you used to be all about the same. One big sticky porridge of conspiring apes laughing about the same stupid jokes and trudging in resignation through the daily ruts. And, mind you, this was not just my ‘one man’s opinion. Oh no, this was as clear as glass, not even needing explanation or evidence as the living dead marched right before my eyes as far as I could see and for all that looked with their eyes open.
Not that this all of a sudden changed that dramatically after I waved Sarah goodbye and treated my self to a can of ice-cold coca cola and a soft ice melting like the polar cap and begging to be lapped up before spillage. I had to fight my knuckles to the bone for that. Minute by minute I had to capture from crashing boredom and infinite void. My victory emerged from the evening, the least menacing part of the empty day, because oblivion by sleep came within future reach and miraculous dreams might be on the menu. I divided the evening in writing, reading and a final hour of socializing, which usually translated into watching telly. After that and on the mark of 9.30 I went to bed, after my mother’s advice: ‘Even if you don’t sleep you at least will rest’. Moreover I did have a sleeping capsule in my medical diet, so within half an hour I got rid of myself.
Actually this is nothing out of the ordinary. I think everybody knows the experience of a new move in life where time will gradually fill itself with new habits and activities. The miracle I want to underline here is that yesterevening I did not see all those same peoples. Suddenly they had turned into individuals, like as if I knew them slightly with not just different but owned faces, persons unmistakably on their self-chosen trajectory, happening to be there and by no means self- evident. And the most miraculous thing was that they all saw me. Not with long painstaking stares or intrusive eying, but in no more than a glance from the corner of their eye, in short in such a way I got the feeling: I exist again.
Jan Ploeg, Eindhoven, January 12th 2007
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